10/27/2004

Sixty Minutes 2 will apparently profile Chicago's Cristo Rey school on its Wednesday night broadcast, according to today's edition of EducationNews.org: Cristo Rey, the "School That Works".While Sixty Minutes probably won't address it, Cristo Rey is more than just a feel-good story about students succeeding in a tough neighborhood. Sure, Cristo Rey features an innovative and somewhat controversial work-study format that allows the school to charge less than half of a typical parochial school. The students, many of them first-generation Spanish speakers, appear to be thriving. And the Chicago school is now part of a small but growing network of Cristo Rey model schools that have sprouted up in urban areas around the country. (In January, 2003, my article in City Limits magazine chronicled the effort to start a Cristo Rey school in New York City: The School That Works.)What makes the Cristo Rey model interesting is how, by virtue of its design and low tuition, it bridges some of the gap between public and private schooling. Last year, the Gates Foundation announced a $19 million grant to build the network of Cristo Rey schools -- by all accounts the only major education philanthropy to fund a parochial school initiative in the nation. And, at just over $2,000, a Cristo Rey tuition is not only within reach for more parents, it's also not that far from the amount of federal funds spent on children under NCLB. To see how this might play out, see my commentary from last year in the Gadfly: A new investment in school choice?

10/25/2004

But wait… It gets worse (Charter Schools)

This Monday’s charter school overview in the New York Times is a timely and insightful look at the current predicament facing the charter school movement, rightly calling it one of the most contentious issues in education. In the article, NAACP president Kweisi Mfume is quoted comparing the intensity of the fight over charter schools to the fight over reproductive rights.

That’s hyperbole right now, but it may not be for long. More and more urban districts are looking to create large numbers of charterized small schools as part of their core school improvement plans. Nationwide, NCLB will soon start requiring “forced” conversions of failing neighborhood schools into charter schools – a much larger change on the part of schools and districts than anything that NCLB has thrown at them thus far. If it's ugly now, it's going to get much more ugly soon. Voters to decide on charter schools (New York Times).

FRIDAY UPDATE: Over at Eduwonk.com, Andy Rotherham rather mystifyingly objects to the idea that support for charters might have been weakened recently: "the story implies that support is weakening. In fact, the opposite is true..." He cites the involvement of La Raza to bolster his case, which tells you just how strong support for charters is right now. A more realistic assessment of the situation might help move things in a positive direction.

Over at the Gadfly -- Times to charters: know your place -- Checker Finn argues that charters are now more controversial “because they now are numerous enough, and successful enough, to threaten the system's interests,” which seems not so unlike Don Rumsfeld’s argument that more insurgency in Iraq means the US is winning the war there.

In addition, as I've said before, I'm not so sure education being a top campaign issue would necessarily be such a good thing. Imagine one version of what it could look like:

Bush on NCLB: It was the right thing to do. NCLB was clearly connected to the growing number of uninsured Americans in our country, and if we weren't implementing NCLB so ferociously the uninsurance rate would certain have gone even higher. Oh, yeah, and NCLB is a jobs program.

Kerry: Being stubborn is not the same as being right. The White House is out of touch on education issues. But I'm not against NCLB or the teachers and administrators who served honorably implementing it. Remember, I voted for it. Let's consult other countries and see what they think we should do about our education system.

Then the Kerry campaign runs the opening minutes from Farenheit 911 where George W. listens to a scripted reading lesson while the Twin Towers burn.

In a rapid-response response, the Bush campaign runs an ad in which Bush stands in front of a school wearing graduation a cap and gown with a sign behind him: "Mission Accomplished."

Who Moved My Cheese? (NCLB)

NCLB in the News: In a relatively lackluster week (so far), the only real NCLB highlight is a cluster of recent Washington Post columns by the esteemed Jay Mathews and the fiesty Marc Fisher that do a remarkably good job in just a short space of detailing the latest arguments, realities, and misperceptions surrounding the two year-old federal education law. In How No Child Left Behind Helps Principals, Mathews debunks several NCLB myths in two recent Fisher columns, including Law Leaves Better Schools In Worse Spot and Falls Church School Won't Teach to the Test. For his part, Fisher details the concerns and complaints of even the most reasonable educators.

The only thing that makes Mathews/Fisher a fair fight is that so many more people seem to believe Fisher's take on things. Now, I haven't conducted my own $700,000 study on coverage of NCLB like the USDE recently did: Study for U.S. Rated Coverage of Schools Law (NYT), or see the whole shebang at Archive of Ketchum Research for the USDE (People for the American Way). And by all accounts the USDE-funded study was inept and incomplete. So I don't know whether it's objectively true that NCLB coverage is overwhelmingly on the skeptical "what are they doing?" side of things.

But it certainly feels that way. And my completely unverified take on why news coverage of NCLB may be skewed is that --

(a) too many of us reporter types get our basic understanding of things from listening (sometimes gullibly) to readily-available teachers and administrators and talking heads rather than to the elusive few parents and researchers who lack an obvious axe to grind;

(b) as Jimmy Traub and others have noted, NCLB is much better suited (and designed) for the most troubled, low-performing urban school systems rather than relatively better-performing (but not as good as they think they are) suburban school systems; and

(c) NCLB's flaws, real and trumped-up, tend to make everyone forget the longstanding problems that existed in many education systems long before NCLB came along.

The Power of One Percent (Urban Districts)

A good friend wrote me about last week’s New Yorker article on Pacific Rim charter school in Boston to say that he thought Kate Boo, the author, was particularly good at putting a human face on complex social issues. And it’s true. But that’s precisely my objection. Other than a scant mention of the backlash against charters that is raging in Massachusetts and elswehere, and an equally cursory reference to No Child Left Behind, there is remarkably little here that could help a reader come to any deeper understanding of the policy issues surrounding charter schools in particular or urban education in general. And that may be all it’s supposed to do.

To be sure, The Factory (New Yorker) puts a human face on the teachers and students at this school, and humanizes what might otherwise be an overwhelmingly complex or depressing situation. And, as Checker Finn puts it in this week’s Gadfly, “What makes this profile especially memorable, though, is the honest portrayal of the students who buy into the school's promise of success, but somehow fall short of their goals.”

10/18/2004

One quick Monday morning note to recommend last week's New Yorker article about Pacific Rim charter school in Boston, which someone kindly scanned and Jimmy Kilpatrick helpfully found.

The piece is not just the typical human interest-oriented school profile of an apparently successful and innovative charter school, though it's interesting to hear about a school inspired by a Chinese-American dentist that requires mandatory Tai Chi and Mandarin Chinese classes and where students -- most of them poor black kids -- clean the lunchroom every day. We've all read this type of story before.

At times, the piece gives a pretty good look at some of the main issues that charter schools and charter schooling have to deal with these days: the intensive, kid-by-kid nature of the enterprise, the fragile nature of charter schools both at their start and even as they grow, the fact that many charter schools don't end up serving the kids they thought they were going to get, and the political pressures created by the charter schools backlash in MA and elsewhere.

To be sure, most of the writer's skill goes towards describing the school and its characters, rather than the tough policy issues facing charter schools right now (how to maintain quality while they grow, and how to have a stronger impact on the rest of public education). Still, it's not that often that a magazine like the New Yorker focuses on education. Take a look. The Factory, by Kate Boo.

NCLB Now a "Jobs" Program (NCLB News):

Who knew? The No Child Left Behind Act has been called many things over the past three years, but not until Wednesday night had anyone but President Bush thought to say that it was “really a jobs act when you think about it.” (Debate.org). A jobs program for psychometricians and progressive complaints, maybe. But it was Kerry who got the facts wrong on Pell grants and after-school funding, says Factcheck.org (New And Recycled Distortions At Final Presidential Debate). Meanwhile, the study that reportedly justified the President's never-implemented after-school cuts (to pay for the $89 billion in tax breaks for the rich instead?) has a follow-up that also calls after school programs to question. Study Rekindles Debate on Value of After-School Programs (Education Week). See below for more NCLB News.

This American School Goes Bad (School Life):

There's nothing more exasperating and humbling than the fact that Ira Glass (of NPR’s “This American Life”) was once an education reporter and occasionally returns to his old beat. Tonight's show has Glass profiling a Chicago teacher whose school (Washington Irving Elementary) has gone from good to bad over the past decade since Glass first reported on the school. Two Steps Back (This American Life). See below for more School Life.

Good Scores, Bad Scores (New and Notable):

Dueling reports came out this week, one from Bruce Fuller claiming that there had been little progress in American schools over the past few years: Are test scores really rising? (in Education Week). The other from the Education Trust pointing to important progress: Study lauds math, reading scores (Sacramento Bee), Study Finds Progress in Reading, Math, but Results Fall Short of Standards (Seattle Times), Schools won't meet goals set for 2014, group reports (Contra Costa Times). Perhaps recalling a week’s worth of bad news over the summer surrounding the AFT-provided analysis of charter school performance, the USDE wasted no time in overreacting. And in The Gadfly (Silly season in academe), Checker Finn recalls the hullaballoo surrounding the 2000 RAND study supposedly undercutting the Texas ‘miracle,’ points out that it didn't take the Kerry campaign long to use the Fuller study against the President in the debate, and then spins an election-season conspiracy theory involving the press, foundations, and academics. Too bad he doesn't take a moment to mention the Ed Trust report showing positive trends, which got much more press, or another moment to berate the USDE for its fake news reports. Meanwhile: Study of College Readiness Finds No Progress in Decade (New York Times). See below for more New and Notable.

Insurgents Fend off Navy at Senn High School (Chicago Illinois)

At a raucous school meeting last week, a vocal group of parents and teachers and students at Senn High School apparently staved off an attemp by the Board to add a new 500-student Navy JROTC program to the school -- for now.

It's happened before, and it'll happen again. What's most interesting is that it was the usually unseen David Pickens, Deputy CEO to Arne Duncan, rather than usual frontman Greg Richmond, who was sent out from Clark Street to do the talking for the Board. Do they horsengoggle each time to see who is going, or is Richmond's star already fading?

Also worth noting is that no one at CPS brainquarters appreciated the obvious and growing wartime politics of proposing a new Navy program while kids are dying in Iraq. (The Reader highlights the fact that initially CPS was thinking of putting the new Navy program at Arai -- where Pickens was once an AP -- but was scared off by 46th ward Alderman Helen Shiller, who apparently didn't want "a military school" in her ward.) Even the often-prescient Teach and Learn deemed the proposed Navy invasion "winnable" for CPS. Maybe six months ago it was.

Last but not least, while the Reader's Ben Jarovsky calls the Board's effort to push the Navy program into Senn "one of the goofiest top-down decisions to come out of the central office in years," I'm guessing that the folks who faced down the Mid-South plan (at least temporarily) or who have been protesting Renaissance 2010 would say different. Indeed, the Board seems increasingly chock full of goofy top-down decisions these days, and seems in some danger of losing its formerly deft touch at just the wrong moment.

10/08/2004

October 8 2004 Edition

"Misled" on NCLB, Dismal VP Debate, and Jittery Funders (Picks of the Week):

Dismal VP Debate(Debate.org):Let's hope (despite all realistic expectation) that Bush and Kerry do a little better tonight talking about education than Cheney and Edwards did earlier this week. In the VP debate, Cheney predictably called Kerry/Edwards out for their flip-flop on NCLB and highlighted recent progress reducing the achievement gap, but then made the ridiculous claim that NCLB had "helped" 33 million schoolchildren. Edwards irresponsibly claimed that NCLB was the reason for teacher layoffs in Cleveland, talked about unfunded mandates and high dropout rates, and then resorted to bringing up Cheney's opposition to the US Department of Education. It wasn't exactly the most insightful or compelling moment. Check out the transcript here, or take a look at the recent Education Trust report on achievement gap trends: Recent Progress in Public Education.

Misled on NCLB (Rep. George Miller): It's not exactly a "Mission Accomplished" carrier deck flight suit moment, but, according to a press release this week from ranking education committee member Rep. George Miller (D-CA), the new GAO report on state implementation of NCLB suggests that the White House misled the public when President Bush declared in the summer of 2003 that every state had complied with NCLB. In fact, according to Miler, only 11 state plans were approved at that point, and the USDE has still not approved 24 plans as of this year. "It appears from this report that the President has misled the public about the progress of education reform and that his Administration has dragged its feet to get this important job done." Read the GAO report summary here or read more about it here: ''No Child' Act is a numbers game for states, school districts (GovExec.com).

Don't Leave School Law Behind (Chronicle of Philanthropy via the Pen Newsblast): In this provocative article, Linda Singer points out that many foundations have -- understandably, unfortunately, and perhaps predictably -- shied away from funding initiatives related to NCLB even though there are many areas of the law including parent engagement and school improvement that could be funded without controversy. There are of course a number of brave funder exceptions, but Singer's observations are a timely reminder of the need for even those opposed to or uncertain about NCLB to stay in the game. Thanks to Howie for scanning and posting this.

10/01/2004

October 1 2004 Edition

Iraq= NCLB (Campaign 2004): Last night's debate was a vivid reminder that Senator Kerry's current quandary on foreign policy is not all different from his predicament on education. Think about it: Kerry voted for going to war with Iraq, and for authorizing NCLB. Since then, he's criticized the implementation of both but fully renounced neither. His own alternative ideas are moderately interesting but none of them wildly compelling or strikingly distinct. If, in some other imaginary world, the Presidential election turned on education issues alone, would John Kerry's political situation be much different than it is now?

Transfers in a Teapot/ Tutoring Tizzy (NCLB): Two years ago, nearly everyone was all worked up about the school choice option in NCLB, but it's the tutoring provision that's turning out to be the big shot in the end -- sort of like on the WB's "Jack and Bobby." One set of issues surrounds whether the kids are getting the tutoring their supposed to:Students missing out on subsidized tutoring (Pittsburgh Tribune-Review). Another more recent set of issues surround the issue of whether the tutoring is any good: Report: Impact of tutors isn't tracked (Philadelphia Inquirer). The entire report can be found here: Accountability Left Behind PDF (ACORN).

*Education Week's story this week on districts providing NCLB tutoring is here:District-Run Tutoring Classes In Jeopardy.My story in last month's Catalyst is here: CPS corners tutoring market but runs risk of losing it all.As it should be, the EW story is better written and less Chicago-centric than mine -- it's also written almost a month later. Now I never went to J-school, so what do I know? Maybe this happens all the time, or I'm supposed to take it as a compliment. And, after all, I've made enormous and sometimes underacknowledged use of information from Education Week stories over the years, usually as background reading. I resolve to do much better on this count. But it's still irksome and not quite the same thing that they couldn't bring themselves to credit me (or the good folks at Catalyst who ran the story) for the forethought and hard work that went into reporting and writing it.